


Olive

by variouslarryous



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Barista Harry, Bottom Louis, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Happy Harry, Homophobic Language, I am so sorry, Louis is kind of depressed, Louis is pining, M/M, Minor Character Death, Niall likes to party, Pining, Sad Louis, Sexuality Crisis, Slow Updates, Spoiler Alert - Freeform, but like, coffee shop harry, everyone knows louis and harry are in love before they do, harry fixes that, harry is also indie, harry is in denial, harry's parents are homophobic, he's just really really sad, it rains a lot, liam and zayn kinda share the dominant role in their relationship, liam is louis' roommate, major angst, so is louis, these tags are gonna give everything away, they kinda share that, though there's not smut for awhile, zayn is cool
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 02:32:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6034693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/variouslarryous/pseuds/variouslarryous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Olive — another way to say you love someone without having to say love</p><p>+</p><p>"Brb with your tea."</p><p>"Really, Harry?"</p><p>"What? It rhymes." Harry shrugs his shoulders and Louis rolls his eyes but definitely not fondly. Nope. No fondness whatsoever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One.

**Author's Note:**

> this chapter is really short. only because it's, like, the introductory chapter. i'll post a longer one tonight. hopefully

**"Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad."**

   **— Henry Wa** **dsworth Longfellow**  

 

**+**

 

 _I swear if I have to listen to another commercial on Spotify_ , Louis rolls his eyes as the familiar voice tells him to "click here to listen to" the album of some artist that he doesn't care to remember the name of. He takes that as his cue to get up from his position, hunched over his laptop.

          It's the time between midnight snacks and breakfast where the glowing numbers on Louis' digital clock blur together, not that Louis pays much attention to it anyway. The sleepless man stands up, stretches, and yawns, in that order, before walking through his dark apartment with practiced ease toward the kitchen. 

          Louis avoids the boots he strategically left behind the couch and waddles towrad his intended destination. The cold floor tickles his toes and he momentarily wonders if he should put on a pair of socks. But because of the ceaseless hunger nipping at his rib cage and his habitual laziness, he decides to focus on the task at hand; making a cup of tea.

          He runs his fingers across the equally cold counter top until he nudges the box of teabags in its accustomed spot. With a small smile tugging at his lips, Louis grabs a mug from alongside the box of tea and trudges toward the sink, a teabag in hand. Once he's done filling his mug with water, he puts it in the microwave for two minutes before relaxing against the kitchen island.

          Gravity by Jamie Woon accompanies the buzzing sound coming from the microwave as they blend and fill the dismal flat. Louis allows his eyes to slip shut, just for a second, and his mind drifts off to a girl with lost eyes and shaky hands. 

        _She worries if her boyfriend loves her as much as he says he does because the flame that she used to set in his eyes is gone or maybe that was just the reflection of the one he set in her own. And she's debating on calling him but it's 2am and image of blood red fingernails that aren't hers, touching him, covering her own fingerprints, plagues her mind. Because the words "I love you" sound foreign coming from his mouth and he's careful not to let any emotions slip between them. And there's nothing like the feeling of being replaced by the one person you love —_

 

   The microwave dings. 

 

          Louis' train of thought crashes and burns and so does the girl, her indecision to call her scandalous boyfriend lost between the flames. Startled, his eyes flash open and he immediately grabs the mug from out of the microwave. The hot mug nearly burns his tiny fingers clean off as he sets it on the island and makes his tea just the way he likes it, two sugars, no milk.

          His tea burns his tongue as he glares at the letter addressed to him on the counter. He wishes he could just put it back in his mail box with "return to sender" written on the front in bold, black letters. It was from his landlord. The rent was, once again, late. 

          Pressing his lips together, he sulks back to his room, knuckles white and body tense.

          "Pay it within the next four weeks or be ready to move out," the blue eyed boy mocks darkly. His frown only deepens when a familiar love song assaults his ears. Because _really, Spotify?_

          The sun is long gone and the moon is proudly taking his absence as a chance to shine. Her light beams through Louis' room as he pulls the curtains back.

          His apartment isn't that bad. The three bedrooms, two bathrooms, with a large kitchen and living room apartment was actually too big for Louis to be living there alone. And if he got a roommate, he could quit either his nightly job at the supermarket or his job at the library (obviously the first one). It made perfect sense, but ( _but_ ) Louis doesn't like people invading his personal palace, as he calls his personal space. He, sometimes, doesn't like people in general.

          Louis sighed as he sat at his desk and grabbed a pen and a piece of paper. On one side, he wrote, 'pros of a roommate' and on the other side, he wrote, 'cons of a roommate'. Hair falling into his face, he began to write. 

          "Less work, more Tommo Time," pro.

          "A loud, blood sucking, personal palace invading roommate," con.

          "Someone to take out the trash, go grocery shopping, etcetera," pro.

          After a few more reasons and the result of the amount pros dominating the amount of cons, Louis was hastily typing up an ad for a roommate. The list was lying face down under his laptop, being obviously ignored by the nervous boy. He felt as if the final word was glaring into the flesh of his reddened cheeks. The word that he just couldn't place in either of the two categories. 

 

          _Companionship._


	2. Two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi. i hope you like this :) . i'll updating eventually. depends on the response i get on this.

**"You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness."**

**— Jonathan Safran Foer**

 

**+**

 

          It's windy and cold, raining relentlessly as Louis, clad in black yoga pants and a warm hoodie, dawdles  down the street. He watches as the rain falls into puddles that run off down into the storm drains through the little drops on his glasses. His hair is drenched and stuck to his forehead in awkward groups (Louis swears he can taste his shampoo when he licks his upper lip and it definitely does not taste like it smells; Vanilla and Sandalwood).

          Everything is just so depressing, from his wet shoes to the dreary sky. So sad that the blue eyed boy no longer knew if it were tears or rain drops running down his cheeks. 

          Red and black umbrellas all blur together as people rush by Louis, making him feel so invisible. Like he was just a speck on Earth that'll eventually disappear and be replaced by another speck who will also be replaced by another speck and—  
  
  


          And he needs to stop thinking so negatively.  
  
  


          Louis' eyes wander and stop on a pink sign in the window of a small building confined between two bigger buildings. "The 24 Hour Coffee Shoppe," is visible in prominent, black lettering, outlined in something shiny; sparkles, maybe? _Well, I wonder if they're open_ , he thinks sarcastically as he slips inside. 

          It's dry, he notices, and warm and, oh, smells of sweets early on Sunday morning. Everything's dim and something soft and catchy, John Mayer maybe, is playing in the background. There's a tree, _a fucking tree_ (or a really large tree branch), placed in the back, reminding Louis of the tree house he never had in his childhood. A spiral staircase leads to a loft inhabiting a small, neon green couch (or huge love seat) and a tiny table and chair.   
  
  
  


          It's... It's really fucking cute, to say the least.   
  
  
  


          Glasses in hand as he admires his new found wonderland, a flash of brunette hair appears by his side as a cheerful voice chirps, "Welcome to The 24 Hour Coffee Shoppe."

          Louis looks over at her in shock and smiles politely, nodding his head. He wipes his shoes on the already wet mat, in a fruitless attempt to dry his shoes, and the nameless girl continues to talk. "My name's Olivia, spelled with an O and not an A. That's the reason it's pronounced oh-livia and not ah-livia. But to avoid confusion people just call me Livy or Liv."

          _Thanks for the autobiography, anything else I need to know before I buy a coffee? Maybe about a childhood pet, a goldfish that recently died,_ again, Louis smiles in the most polite way, which is a much better response than the sarcastic words just waiting to be said, and nods as he listens to Oh-livia. She departs with an, "but yeah, so, welcome," and as Louis watches her walk toward the counter, he immediately begins to pity the girl.

          She... There's something wrong with her legs, hips maybe? Yeah, definitely her hips. Wincing, he watches as they sway side-to-side in sharp movements and he gets that feeling in his tummy, the feeling he used get when the swing set would swing too high. She's probably one of those people that have cancer and have, like, thirty days left to live and oh God, that's terrible. Working her heart out at a 24 coffee shop while the cancer spreads through her hips. Such a brave girl.

          Cleaning off his glasses with the bottom of his shirt, Louis walks to the register. His shoes squeak on the floor and he would be embarrassed if there were more people in the small little cafe, but, to his joy, it's nearly empty.

          He places his glasses back on his nose before he drifts toward the glass cases displaying delicious looking desserts. 

          "Good morning. Welcome to The 24 Hour Coffee Shoppe. May I," the voice yawns, "may I take your order?"

          Mr. Tomlinson, Tomlinson comma Louis William (as it says on his Driver's License), Louis totally does not shiver when the deep, velvet voice reaches his ears. It's slow and sultry and down right alluring to the point where he could get off to the voice reading him his grocery list. 

          The boy in front of him, if he can call him that, is the epitome of perfection. His long, brown hair falls in waves across his shoulders, reminding Louis of a muddy river in the most romantic way possible. His skin is so pale and blemish free, shining brightly in the dark shop. His lips are pink and plump, the bottom one tugged halfway between the stranger's teeth, and his eyes. They're beautiful. Words like green and emerald and viridescent come to mind but none of them are powerful enough to describe the orbs staring back at him. 

          Louis' fingers drum an arrhythmical beat against the glass display case, comically matching the fast pace beat of his heart, as he stares. He's never done this before, never stopped ogling an apple fritter in favor of ogling someone's beauty instead. He doesn't even remember looking up at the green eyed stranger. 

          "Yeah, hi. I'd like a cup of tea. Two sugars, no milk. Wait, do you even sell tea?" He swallows, his tongue feeling thick in his mouth.

          "Yes sir, we do. Small, medium, or large?"

          Shit, Louis. Small. Medium. _Or large. Very, very large, I hope_ , the stunned boy blinks away the dirty thoughts in his head. "Medium."

          The stranger, Harry (thank you, name tag), hums in acknowledgement as his long, nimble fingers press a few buttons on the register. Louis' breath hitches. "Anything else?"

_Yes, can you please record yourself saying milk, cereal, and tea bags for me?_   "No, that's it."

          "Alrighty. Your total is $2.75." Harry tucks his hair behind his ear as he smiles and he has dimples, _fucking dimples_ , deeper than the muddy river his hair resembles.  
  
  


          And Louis' fucked. And he wants to be fucked. And his total is $2.75.  
  
  


          His fingers fumble as he grabs his wallet and pulls out a five dollar bill.

          "Keep the change," he clears his throat as he hands the bill over to Harry, their fingers brushing.

          He's just about to turn around and stumble over to a table, the probability of him tripping high, when Green Eyes speaks up.

          "What's your name?"

_What's my name again? Where am I? What's the date?_ This oddly feels like that episode of Spongebob Squarepants where Spongebob erases his mind until all he knows is fine dining and breathing. Unfortunately, all Louis knew how to do was breathe and even now he was slowly forgetting how to do that simple task.

          Louis glances up at the eyes staring back at him. And he blinks and blinks and blinks again. He hears himself reply with, "Louis" as he continues to blink rapidly. Because this has to be an illusion, a hallucination. And maybe if he blinks enough, Harry will disappear and he'll find out he was really talking to a 35 year old man with a rough beard and an even rougher voice.

          But no, Harry's still there after Louis blinks for about half a minute, so he walks over to a soft looking chair right in front of the counter and relaxes.

          His hair's still wet and awkwardly matted to his forehead and his shoes make little squishing noises when he walks and he looks like his parents were Beauty and Melancholy and he took after Melancholy because Beauty left when he was a child.

          He avoids leaning all the way back in the soft chair, in fear of his jacket getting the fabric wet, and instead pulls a napkin out of the retro napkin dispenser and a pen from his pocket. 

          This is the part about writing that he hates. The part where out of everything in the world he has nothing to write about. He has the motivation but not the inspiration. It's the reason that his previous editor dropped him. He said, "You're an incredible writer but you have no inspiration. Find yourself a muse and actually finish a full book and then you can contact me."  
  
  


          Louis wishes he could say it was bullshit.   
  
  


          A loud booming sound erupts from behind the counter in the kitchen are and straightaway a cloud of white smoke raises from yonder. After a deafening screech of "Glen!", Oh-livia comes running from the kitchen covered in white powder. Harry follows suit, hair no longer muddy brown but more like cloud white.

          Laughter bubbles up from Louis' chest and he tries to stifle it with his hand but the sound escapes through the spaces between his fingers. He laughs harder at the incredulous look on Harry's face, as well as the one on Olivia's face (but he tries not to because of her hip cancer).

          Curly (because the name Harry keeps reminding Louis that he needs to shave) shuffles over to Louis, leaving a trail of the white stuff (hopefully not cocaine) in his wake. Setting the warm tea on the table, Curly smiles sheepishly and gestures toward the cup. "There you go."

          Louis smiles and picks up his tea, the heat warming his shaking hands. "You've got a little..." He points to his hair. 

          "I know." Curly sticks his hands in his hair and shakes until it once again resembles a muddy river. He chuckles and looks up at Louis again. "Did I get all the flour out?"

          Okay good. It's flour not cocaine so Louis can stop wondering when drug dealers suddenly became attractive. "The majority of it, yeah."

          The corner of Harry's lips slip up and he salutes Louis before swiftly turning around and... Is he marching? Oh my. The blue eyed boy doesn't laugh at the patch of flour still resting in the back of the curls, for the sake of his voice because if he starts that hideous cackle that's stuck in his chest, he will not stop anytime soon.

          Shaking his head ( _not fondly_ , he swears), Louis lifts the white cup to his lips and blows softly before taking a sip and, oh. It's incredible, really fucking incredible. It tastes like inspiration and, _shit,_ is that _cinnamon_? No fucking way. It's probably the best goddamn tea Louis' taste buds will ever have the pleasure of tasting.   
  
  


          And he starts writing.  
  
  


          Occasionally, he'll lift his head and find a pair of green-but-not-actually-green-because-that-word-is-an-understatement eyes staring back at him, but it's comforting and not creepy. Something slow and cozy plays inside the small coffee shop and Louis actually feels nice. Nice and calm.

          He writes about a man who loves to bake, a man with curly hair and green eyes. And everyday the man goes home with dough crusted under his fingernails and flour hidden in his hair and over the span of the week the flour accumulates. See, the baker worked so much that night after night he'd forget to wash his hair.

          He writes about how the next week the man wakes up to pretty blue and pink and purple flowers resting between the chocolate hair oh his head. And really, there's no deeper meaning to it. Louis just wrote using the homophones (Homonyms, maybe? Louis doesn't remember the homo's) flour and flower. But hey, if you choose to you can tell little kids that flowers grow because flour is secretly the seed of flowers.

          He writes until the napkin is unfolded and covered in his tiny scrawl (smol scrawl) on both sides. He feels pretty accomplished finally completing a story, if you can call it that. 

          His tea is long gone by then, though he periodically raises his cup to his lips as if he's still drinking it so they, Harry and Oh-livia (mostly Harry, though Louis would never admit it), don't think he's just using them for their shelter from the rain and free napkins.

          When he leaves, it's no longer rainy and his hair is dry but it's still bitterly cold. His coffee cup is still clutched on his hand as he walks back to his apartment. His napkin is forgotten back at the table. The story had ended, no reason keeping it. 

          Louis immediately plays Green Eyes by Coldplay when he gets back home, and cues it to play on repeat until he decides he's heard it enough. Checking his email, he's glad to see the little red notification but when he sees he has 36 new emails, a dull throb begins behind his ears and, _shit_ , he knew this whole roommate thing was going to be very problematic.

          It had been two weeks since he initially put the ad out there and damn, there's a shitload of homeless people in his tiny town. He had already talked to countless people but Louis always found a reason why they couldn't be his roommate.

          Charlie said he smoked weed and that probably meant that 95% of the time he'll be high, which meant nothing would get done.

          Sherman seemed to be an amazing roommate. He was a science geek that liked stargazing and keeping to himself, but he had a weird name.

          Shelby was nice but she admitted that she liked to have sex, a lot, which isn't a big deal. Sex is healthy, sex is cool. While on the phone with Louis, though, she proceeded to tell him that he could "have a go" if he lowered the portion of the rent that she had to pay.   
  
  


          But sex is loud and Louis isn't into girls so... No.  
  
  


          "Hey, I saw your ad for the roommate thing. My name's Jaxson Daniels. The catch is that I have a band so on Wednesdays and Fridays we would be practicing at your place. No you wouldn't buddy." Louis reads aloud, shaking his head as he pastes his 'I'm sorry but you're not the type of roommate I'm looking for' message and clicks send.

          Resting his elbows on his desk, he buries his face in his hands and let's out a guttural groan. There was a constant knocking against his temple internally and a low buzzing coming from somewhere in the back of his mind. Luckily overlapping that buzz were the lyrics, " _And honey you should know / that I could never go on without you, Green Eyes._ "  
  
  


_Ding._   
  
  


          "Ugh," Louis groans again, raising his head up. "Please be good. Please be good. _Please be good._ " He crosses his fingers and clicks on the new email notification. 

          "Hello Mr. Tomlinson," oh boy, "my name is Liam Payne and I would like to rent out the extra bedroom in your apartment. I'm not messy, quite the opposite actually. I work the day shift at a pet shop on Monday through Friday and sometimes on Sundays. I'm homosexual and, in fact, have a boyfriend. If that's a problem then I no longer want the room, but if my sexuality won't be a problem then I would really like for you to consider offering me the room. Please email me back using this email or you could call me with the number posted below. Thank you and have a wonderful day!"  
  
  


          Louis has never hit 'reply' so fast.  
  
  


          "Hi Liam. Please, call me Louis. Boy, am I glad that you emailed me. Your sexuality is not a problem at all and your cleanliness is perfect. I'd like to meet up with you so we can talk more about financial stuff, but other than that you've got the room! I'll text you when I'm free, which will probably be this weekend, so we can find a place to meet, but yeah. You're welcome, mate. Thank you :)"

          He quickly deletes the ad and leans back in his fancy desk chair, feeling as if a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. He notices the empty coffee cup from the corner of his eye and immediately grabs it. Curiously, he twists it around in the palm of his hand, examining the boring white color it.

          On it's third time around in Louis' palm, something at the top catches his attention. He leans down closer, holding the cup up against his nose. There's a little name bar, and written there in handwriting much neater than his own, which isn't to hard to accomplish compared to Louis' shit script, is his name.  
  
  


_"Loo-ee :)"_   
  
  


          Loo-ee swears his heart does not, under any circumstances, skip a beat, nor does its pace quicken. Nope. Not at all.   
  



End file.
